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- [00:01]
Ralph Burns
Hey, folks, Ralph here with something that could seriously upgrade your Top of Funnel ad game. If you've been a PT listener for any period of time, you know that we talk about top of Funnel all the time and how challenging it is for you to get quality Top of Funnel clients or leads or customers and then convert them typically at bottom of funnel. Well, TV advertising is one of those areas that we haven't discussed here on PT all that much. But our friends over at Ad Critter have figured this stuff out. They do connected TV ads so you can be everywhere without spending millions on super bowl ads. But they pair it with display retargeting. So you're hitting the audiences with a complete approach. You reach them, then you remind them, and then you collect the revenue. It's a strategy designed to deliver, and let me tell you, it really works. We're testing this at tier 11 and so far the results have been very impressive. Now with Ad Critter, creating custom audiences are so easy. You don't need to reformat files, you don't need to mess around with complex spreadsheets. You just upload any file in any format and you're ready to go. And the match rate is awesome. They make it easy to connect with the right people, the actual people that have interacted with your ads in the past and then allow them to naturally flow through your funnel so you can convert them at bottom of funnel. Now, the folks at AdCritter, we twisted their arm to get us a great deal for you, the PT listener. They are offering a special deal for y'all, and that is you can get a $500 campaign credit, meaning $500 in free money to test out the platform or dollar for dollar matching on any TV campaign up to five grand. Imagine the impact of that match spend five grand. The they'll add another five grand in display. That's a huge opportunity here. Now it's only offered to you, the PT listener. Head over to AdCritter.com PT and check it out. Hey, PT listeners, what if you could stop overpaying for your software? The software that you're using every single day to run your business or your department? What if you could never have to pay full price for software again? Or what if there was a place where you could get deals on software that would save you hundreds over what you buy for it on retail? Well, appsumo is the best place for entrepreneurs like you, for marketers like you to get deals on software. In fact, they have saved entrepreneurs and marketers over half a billion dollars on software costs since they first started back in 2010. We just did an expense analysis for 2024 and we are paying way too much for our software, which is the reason why we've now partnered with Appsumo and they are giving you, the Perpetual Traffic Listener, an incredible discount. Because they don't give discounts, ladies and gentlemen, because their prices are already so low. But we got you the biggest discount available anywhere because we wanted it ourselves. You can get 13% off your first order with AppSumo with the code TRAFFIC13. That's code TRAFFIC13. To get 13% off your first order over at Appsumo, don't wait. This offer is not going to stick around because like I said, their prices are already so low, it's absolutely insane. Get 13% off your first order with code TRAFFIC13 over@appsumo.com. you're listening to Perpetual Traffic. Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns and the founder CEO of Tier 11 alongside my amazing co host, Lauren E. Petrullo.
- [03:47]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Founder of Mongoose Media.
- [03:49]
Ralph Burns
Yeah. And today, thank you so much for joining us. It is a Friday. We are just airing our grievances about certain things that have happened this week. And what we're finding is that you, the Perpetual Traffic listener. Yeah, you want the tactical stuff. We will get to some of that. But the theme that we decided on for this coming month and quarter really is about personal development. And I think last week's show, the show that we aired last Friday, this is being aired today on a Tuesday. Go back and listen to that episode because it was about a book that we discussed and sort of went into, not super deep, but just got the high level on, which is a book by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Kennedy, two really sharp dudes that wrote a book called 10X is easier than 2X. Not only is it a great title from a copywriter and a headline standpoint, because it's very intriguing because you know, it's counterintuitive. Once again, counterintuitive, which I believe is actually in the title of that episode. Actually, no, you negated that. You took out the counterintuitive. The point is that 10x is easier than 2x is only easier if you find the right types of who's within your organization or outside of your organization so you can focus on your 20%. What we talked about, what Dan Sullivan talks about, is your unique ability. And that's an ideal. It's an ideal to get there. I'm not saying that you should have done it by now in four days. But the point is, this is something that I would really like you as a listener to think more and more about and double down on as much as possible. We're certainly doing that here. And it's about setting lofty goals. So big goals, like 10x goals instead of 2x goals. Because as soon as you set a 10x goal, all of a sudden your choices for what path you need to take become very limited. Because if it's a 2x or it's like, hey, I want to grow my business by 10% this year, there's literally infinite numbers of things you can do and they might not be the right things, but if you want to make a radical shift and go really big like a bhag, as Jim Collins from good to great would say, all of a sudden the choices you need to make are fundamentally different. And chances are they're probably not the things that you're doing today. So that's one of the things that we did inside tier 11 this past year, setting ourselves up for success. Have lofty goals. I know you have lofty goals this year, personal income goals. Hopefully you're doing the same as a perpetual traffic listener. So it leads us to today's show, which is some of the frustrations and the bumps in the road on the way to achieving that. Go. One of those things is for you to reach your income goal, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a million dollars cash this year. You're not going to rob a bank or anything like that. That's good. It's going to come probably from your business or other businesses here. One of the things that you're trying to hire for right now is someone who can help you get to there. But it is not easy. You may or may not need to kiss a few frogs. As my old boss, Tom Davies used to say, you gotta kiss a few frogs before you find the princess. Literally. That's how he talks. I'm not kidding. And he was from Maine. Anyway, the point is, is you've had some challenges here. So what I'd like to do is sort of introduce the idea of the hiring process, how to find those people, and then we'll actually bring in some of our specialists. We have an HR specialist on staff at tier 11, does an extraordinary job of this find, figured out an entire system. I'm not saying our way is the absolute way, but it is a good way. It does minimize some of the mistakes, but we still make some errors along the way. There is no getting around it.
- [07:37]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Right.
- [07:38]
Ralph Burns
So tell us a little bit about the story that you were just telling me before we started to hit record today.
- [07:43]
Lauren E. Petrullo
So I guess like to give some preferences is there's definitely different ways you can recruit. Referrals will always be the number one resource for me if you have someone that's willing to put their name on another individual's character and attitude. Because I'll always hire for attitude over aptitude. That's the best. Doing self recruitment can be exhausting. I've done indeed I've done lots of other recruiting channels but I have found the most success at least Time Wise has been using recruitment agencies. But what's really interesting is when you use a recruitment agency you have the opportunity to expand your borders and you're doing all of these interviews virtually, you know, on my goals. I'm opening a physical office in Orlando this year. So we'll be recruiting more individual and talent from that drive in market so that they can work in our office. But not all positions need to be in person in the Orlando office. So something that I was telling you before the show to be mindful of, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. Let's say this may happen, you know, hypothetically. This is a possibility. Okay.
- [08:51]
Ralph Burns
Not that it ever did or never would. Got it all.
- [08:55]
Lauren E. Petrullo
All characters are based off of fictitious representations. Any relation to any real human people were surely by chance disclaimer language. You see before everybody.
- [09:08]
Ralph Burns
I used to have to read those disclaimers in my first job in advertising actually. But yes. Yeah, it's purely by chance. It's hypothetical situations. Right.
- [09:16]
Lauren E. Petrullo
You might want to be aware of and that like you wouldn't necessarily think about. But it's fun situations. When you're interviewing using zoom, Google Meets some sort of video platform. What view do you look at, Ralph? How much of the individual do you see?
- [09:35]
Ralph Burns
Pretty much it's chest up or shoulders above. Yeah, yeah.
- [09:41]
Lauren E. Petrullo
So if an individual has a physical disability and they're in a chair, you can't see it, which most of the times is no problem. But if you have a role that is physical and requires additional accommodations. I'm not saying that like being ableist in any capacity. It's just, it's something that you need to be aware of. If there are physical limitations, you can ask the proper questions of do. What can we do to accommodate going up and down this forklift or if you don't have an elevator, for example. That's a hypothetical situation. My dad had one leg, all right, sitting down. He was like five Foot, nothing standing up. He was six, eight and a half on one side, five, four on the other. Right. Because he was missing half a leg. If you saw my stand up, you would know. My mom had A1 footage. Oh, yeah, there you go. Now, you know my dad had one foot. He lost it in the war. But so, like, there were limitations when he was alive for certain jobs he could do, like his height. When you have someone that's six, eight and a half and you're asking them to crawl under a six, he doesn't fit.
- [10:46]
Ralph Burns
Yeah, he's not going to be a fighter pilot either. Chances are he wouldn't fit me. Yeah, I don't even know if he'd be able to do that. But anyway, the point is, there are physical limitations. Like, everyone now is nearly 100% virtual. Although some of the tech companies are going back to the office making it a mandate. That's a whole other thing that we can discuss. But the point is, a lot of the hiring process now is done virtually. And all you see is what you're seeing right now on our YouTube channel over@petpetual traffic.com YouTube.
- [11:17]
Lauren E. Petrullo
So, like, if you can't. If you can't see more than chest up and you're hiring for a foot model, well, you can't see the feet. Right, Right. Other situations that you might not hypothetically not be aware of is that if someone's water is going to break an hour after your interview could.
- [11:36]
Ralph Burns
Could affect the hiring process. We're not hiring attorneys.
- [11:42]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Right. The thing is, like, if you have someone. Like this is true. No matter what, if someone has a planned vacation and you're in the hiring process and you know, like, hey, look, I booked this cruise with my family. It's two weeks after your intended start date. I just need to signal to you that I will be unavailable because this was previously booked. Right. Those type of situations and conversations happen normally. And when you know about someone's anticipated days that they'll have off, you can make a decision on if that's going to work for your company or not.
- [12:12]
Ralph Burns
Right.
- [12:12]
Lauren E. Petrullo
But if you're not able to, you.
- [12:13]
Ralph Burns
Should have a right to know.
- [12:15]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Yeah. Because if you're in the first 90 days, and depending on what your human resources team or your hiring documents or your employee handbooks say, usually the first 90 days is a trial period.
- [12:27]
Ralph Burns
And we are not saying taking off. Let's just make sure we're clear on this. We are not saying that if someone is eight months pregnant, you shouldn't hire them, but 100%, you have to have a practical. This is like you're in business to make a profit. Okay? Change the world, influence mankind in a positive way. Yes, but the end of the day, no profit, no people. So you are in business to turn a profit. And you have to have full discourse when it comes to making that hiring decision. We did the same thing. We didn't realize it either. And somebody recently that was hired, we didn't realize they were six months pregnant. They should have told us. Now we gave them full maternity leave, did as many right things as we possibly could do, but that put us in a huge competitive disadvantage. Not only that, but it cost us a lot of money, which, you know, we checked with all the state regulations. Obviously we're a virtual company, but it's like the applicant has the obligation, in my opinion, from an ethical standpoint to divulge those details, which could affect their work effectiveness. Did I say that in a legalese way? 100%.
- [13:46]
Lauren E. Petrullo
If you have a vacation you've already planned and you don't disclose it because this has happened before, hypothetically, right. Someone will take off two weeks after they started and like request time off. You're like, whoa, whoa what? This is in your first 90 day period. Oh, I've had this book before. It's like this just was poor communication upfront most of the time. Like the individual. Like most of if you're hiring someone and that person's a right fit. I can't speak for all employers, but I would assume 90% are like, Heck yeah, I'm willing to wait. You communicated effectively. But if you're not aware of those types of limitations, you might find yourself in a situation where they're not being honest with you. They're underperforming because they're hiding. They're stressed potentially. Hypothetically, if they are, if they've delivered a baby two days before they started working with you, stress may cause them challenges in producing milk, stress may, like they're not sleeping. There's a lot that goes. Productivity at work, 100%.
- [14:52]
Ralph Burns
All of those things, those need to be divulged. I think one of the, like a takeaway on this is a simple question that can be asked. And you know, before the world of virtual interviews, this was sort of more apparent, I think, because you could see the physical potential limitations, like we're just using this as an example, is that you might want to consider asking the question, is there anything that we haven't discussed so far that would hinder your ability to do work within the next 90 to 120 days at Mongoose Media.
- [15:22]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Correct.
- [15:23]
Ralph Burns
And if they say no, they are lying.
- [15:27]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Well, they may not think they're lying. Like to be fair, like you don't know your own physical limitations. Like you can't foresee if someone were to get a medical diagnosis, someone we've worked with, someone got shortly after hiring a unknown, very like small, limited medical diagnosis that would. So you can't know what you don't know. You have to disclose stuff that you know. Like if you have a vacation that is booked in your first 90 to 120 days that you know you're going to be out of the office for, if there's political turmoil in your current environment where you may not have access to electricity, power or Internet and you know this to be true, that's something you should disclose. Things of that nature. I think that question you pose is, is there anything in the next 90 to 120 days that we have not discussed that could limit you from fulfilling your duties to your full potential? Like, are there any restraints that we need to be aware of? Cause I will tell you again, most of the time, when you find that good candidate, that, that prince or princess, if you will. Cause you've kissed a lot of frogs before. I believe most business owners are like, heck yes, we will work. Let's accommodate together. Because when you have a business owner that is willing and able to understand, yeah, you've got this ten year family reunion. How amazing. Okay, we recognize it. Let's either push your hiring date back to after it starts or let's just make sure we all know that there's this two week period and let's accommodate your training schedule. Yeah, most of the time it's like when you find the person you want. Business owners are willing to make accommodations and to find ways that could work. Physical limitations. Like if you, you don't have feet, but you have, you're doing a foot model. Okay, do you have like prosthetic fee or do you have access to someone else's feet there? It's a conversation. It's not like a deal breaker. I think most, most, most of the time. But what is a deal breaker for me is that subterfuge that intentional hiding of imperative information that can affect your performance. Because then you're like, why isn't this individual performing as well? I don't understand what happened.
- [17:41]
Ralph Burns
Yeah. And it seems like you hire a lot of foot models at Mongo's Media. This is interesting. But the point is, is like this is a cut. This is a Question. That is a good question to ask at the end. We're almost. We're talking about sort of the tail end of the interviewing process. The question that I always ask prior to actually making an offer is, if I offered you the job today, would you say yes? Oh, and because that way I know I have somebody who's interested, and I don't necessarily listen to the response, whether it's yes or no. I listen to how they respond. If they hesitate, I know I have a problem. And then if they hesitate, if they say, yeah, or if they immediately say yes, absolutely, like, you've already talked about money. All right, they know what the salary range is. You haven't given them the offer yet. Let's say the salary range. I never tell them, this is what you're going to make. This is the range usually go a little bit lower because they end up wanting a higher end of the range. That's just a little tactic that I've used for years and years. The point is, everybody thinks, well, if the range is five to $7,000 a month, well, I'm worth 7,000, of course. However, what I might say is that when we're talking about money, I'm like, all right, the range is 5,000 to $7,000. You don't quite have the expertise and the level of seniority for the $7,000 range. I will do everything I can in order to fight for you. Like, I'm the CEO now, so it's a little bit different. It was a hiring manager. I was like, I can go to the CEO. I can go to HR and fight on your behalf. However, I wouldn't expect that. But something in that middle part of the range. How does that sound? And then if they say, that's great, then you say, all right, well, based on everything that we've talked about so far, this is sales 101. Really? Is there anything that would prevent you from starting with us or if we offered you the job today, you know, would you take it? And if they say yes immediately, then you know, you've got your hire. Chances are it's not 100% foolproof. The corollary to that question is the one that we asked before is, like, you want to sort of know that through the process, you might want to drop that in during your interview somewhere so that you at least know. So the woman that we hired that was six months pregnant, like, she didn't tell us, and I had a real problem with that. And, you know, everything worked out fine. Like, we probably overpaid her in the end. The point is she was in the US So we complied with all the regulatory laws and all the other sorts of stuff that you have to go through. The point is like you should tell your employer. And it doesn't necessarily. If she told me, I would have been like, fine, because she was a great candidate. So we thought so. The point is that that immediately dropped down on the level of trust. And I look at trust as the foundational concept. Everyone who's going to work with you if you do not have that, you have got nothing. And I wrote a book on this called Virtual Boss. We'll leave a link in the show notes. There's not a huge section on hiring. There's a whole other book on hiring which I haven't written yet. The point was is that the, you've got to place deposits in the trust account as a manager, as a hiring manager as much as possible because you're eventually going to start to withdraw them. But you as the employee should be doing the same because it's a two way street. It's not what can I get out of the company, it's like what can I give to the company and what can I get in return so that they get what they want? And that when you have those two things together, like that's all based on trust. And it sounds like in your interviewing process here that trust was immediately broken. Thankfully you had a recruitment agency. Hypothetically. Hypothetically. And if you go through an agency, the agency is actually the one that does the dirty work for you and finds it, which is helpful for sure.
- [21:35]
Lauren E. Petrullo
So that's where it's like leaning on agencies I found to be super helpful. Like in the past of. A real example I'm happy to share is like I had an individual who told me like she's engaged and she's going to have a wedding in the next four months. So she told me right out the gates. I was like, cool, that means there's a wedding, there's a honeymoon and there's going to be the like two weeks before the wedding. She's going to be useless.
- [21:56]
Ralph Burns
Yeah.
- [21:56]
Lauren E. Petrullo
And she's going to be off. So we had that discussion of like, okay, you told me this. Totally fine. That's amazing. I can't wait to celebrate with you. Let's make sure that. Does this make sense of the time off you would need. Need for the wedding? Because I'm not asking you to push it. You're a great candidate. I want to move forward and you've established clear communication and trust. Which speaks volumes to me. And so I was like, yeah, okay, great. How long's the honeymoon? What are the plans? I think you should take three days off before the wedding so you can handle and. And get ready. So we had said that she had said she wanted the day of the wedding and I was like, I think you should do three. She said, maybe one day's. I was like, this is not negotiable. You're taking three days off because you never know what's going to come up last minute.
- [22:37]
Ralph Burns
Right.
- [22:38]
Lauren E. Petrullo
And I can tell you that that individual worked with me for two years.
- [22:41]
Ralph Burns
That's great. And you started on the right we.
- [22:43]
Lauren E. Petrullo
Built with each other was, hey, thank you so much because I didn't know I needed those three days because there was stuff with in law. Anyway, long story short is I think the way you phrase that question is amazing. And if anyone listening has encountered hypothetical situations like we've discussed or other scenarios, I'd love if you're listening on Spotify, to leave a comment or if you're on YouTube to tell us about your experience because there are new challenges that aren't like, super discussed. Ralph, I've talked about like a remote, like, dress code that you have to do because we're all showing up online again. I don't care. You're chest up, so you might be wearing a skirt, underwear, pants. This isn't like a no pants, no shoes, no service situation, but there's lots of those.
- [23:27]
Ralph Burns
How did you know I was wearing a skirt?
- [23:30]
Lauren E. Petrullo
I thought it was a squirt.
- [23:32]
Ralph Burns
Squirt? Well, actually, yeah, it is a squirt.
- [23:34]
Lauren E. Petrullo
But I'm sure there's listeners here that have encountered similar experiences and like, absolutely. I'd love to know what situations you've done or if there's anything that you have found helpful in ensuring that you've got good culture, fit, good potential and prospecting. Because asking for a friend.
- [23:52]
Ralph Burns
Asking for a friend, Absolutely. Well, this is just, I think, one small subset of the whole process of the who, not how theme that we want to sort of talk about here. Setting bigger goals. Going 10x instead of 2x 10% isn't very exciting, but 10x is exciting. The only way to make your present better is to make your future bigger. And we're big believers in that. Even though I forget that phrase every now and then, Lauren. But anyway, just going to stamp that, like right on my desk.
- [24:24]
Lauren E. Petrullo
On your finger.
- [24:25]
Ralph Burns
Tattoo it on my finger. Like this finger. Right here, right there. Nice, nice place for it. And this is all a part of that. So what we're going to do is we're going to actually do more episodes here and let us know in the comments, wherever you listen to podcast if you find this helpful and useful. This is just sort of a day in the life of hiring as an entrepreneur. Whether you're a director of a department, you know, or you're a one man band, hiring your first person, like your first va like this is the kind of stuff that you really need to look at in order to 10x yourself. In the coming year, we will bring on our HR specialist onto the show. We've been asking, I've actually asked him last year, our head of people and culture, Josh Hill. And we'll go through that whole process as well as we'll get into a lot of the hiring techniques that I've used through the years. I've literally interviewed and hired hundreds and probably thousands of interviews. So there is all that that we can tap into here. So anyway, as you move forward in your journey, best of luck in hiring. This is sort of the tail end of it. We're going to talk a lot more about this in the coming weeks and months. So wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure that you comment and leave a rating. And of course you can get all the show notes and everything that we talked about here today over@perpetualtraffic.com so on behalf of, of my awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrulo, mba Till next show. See ya. You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.